FOOTBALL Journalism students visited the Pirelli Stadium to get a taste of what it would be like to attend an EFL press conference.
Burton Albion first team players Michael Mancienne and Deji Oshilaja were on hand to answer questions from 30 students from the University of Derby about their football careers.
The students also questioned the club’s media team about how press activities work at Burton Albion and got chance to sit in the dug outs and at the press benches.
Peter Lansley, Senior Football Journalism Lecturer, said: “This was part of our match reporting module, focussing on press conferences, and we wanted the students to have real word experience of that and because we have a club like Burton Albion really willing to help us that makes it a real experience not just a theoretical one.
“It’s a learning curve and they will have got a lot out of the chance to question professional footballers like Michael and Deji. The players both said how they prefer interviews to be like a conversation so they will learn from that and remember basics like taping the press conference so they can revisit it later.”
Third year student George Wilson hosted the press conference.
He said: “It was really beneficial both for the students and a great experience for myself to lead something like this. The players spoke really well and for the students to be doing this for the first time it was important to have players who gave such good answers.”